Weekend Review ? Warning! may contain violent conduct

The end of the season is getting closer. Games get more exciting, people get more angry, and football gets more and more silly:

Patrick Vieira - Desperate to make amends for his desperate attempt to criticise United by accusing them of being desperate, Vieira this week decided to give an interview to the BBC...in which he criticised United some more, and proclaimed that Manchester City "deserved" to be champions. Nothing annoys me more in football than people who decide they "deserve" things purely on the basis that they've decided they deserve them, but then Vieira is a former Arsenal player. Perhaps there was no room to put the brain back in when god decided to shrivel up Patrick's head. Yes, he was lead on to criticising United by the BBC in this occasion, but no one forced him to say anything at all. If it's supposed to be mind games, it doesn't really work when you fail to engage your mind first.

Close but no cigar (in the eye) - Meanwhile at Eastlands, yet another stirring almost fight back from City. The blues have in fact become the indisputable almost comeback kings. Almost managing to strike fear into the hearts of opposition with their only just say die attitude. Ok, so this time they salvaged a draw, but at this point in the season and at home, a draw is worth about as much as the moral sense of accomplishment they achieved when throwing themselves out of the FA and Uefa cup. Almost comebacks though are at least a refreshing method of potential season capitulation, compared to Arsenal's annual arrogance implosion, or Chelsea's "spend middle part of season dying of old age" routine. Nearly look out everyone!

The unsightly return of Carlos Tevez - If Carlos Tevez ate the football and ran into the opposition net, would it count as a goal? This needs clearing up before it becomes a real issue. Would the whole of the Tevez have to cross the line, for example, because I'm not sure that's possible without making the net significantly bigger, and other than this, I'm struggling to see why City have brought him back. Maybe it's so he can fill the empty seats at Eastlands...all of them, at the same time...but then if they'd just flown over a few more complementary burgers, he could probably have done that without even having to leave Argentina. Other than that though I can only figure City have forgotten the rule with Tevez where he has to be completely useless for two months before remembering how to play football.

The Blackburn effect - United fans celebrating City's latest almost comeback would do well to remember they're away at Blackburn this coming Monday. Blackburn vs United pans out exactly the same almost every single year; United concede a cheap early goal, then Brad Friedel spends the rest of the game making about 50,000 impossible saves before United eventually salvage a draw in the last ten minutes. Even the fact Brad Friedel no longer plays for Blackburn failed to prevent this from happening last year, and in all likelihood will fail to do so again tomorrow night, with Garry Neville already having awarded him Man of the Match. More to the point, United looked so nervous against an unlucky Fulham side last week, that even in victory they almost managed to cast more doubt than assurance.

"You don't get those at Old Trafford" - Unless you're Arsenal, or Newcastle, or FC Basle, or Blackburn. This sentence, or some variation of it, has been said more times in the past week than Ronaldo has looked at himself in the mirror. A bizarre myth that started out as a convenient scapegoat for the weak, and which has since evolved into the world's most lazy punditry cliché, with the possible exception of "they were first to every single loose ball". Anyone caught muttering either of these sentiments should be immediately punished with a lifelong contract at Channel 5.

"Fighting" between team mates - Here's what constitutes all out infighting and "dressing room meltdown" in the eyes of today's football world:

"Can I take this free kick?"

"no"

"but I want to take it"

"no, go away"

Complete carnage I'm sure you'll agree. Goalkeepers getting angry at their defenders about things also seems to have upgraded itself from normal to outrageous and "detrimental for team spirit"

Gone are the good old days when you coud put a cigarette out in a teammate's eye, or have a good old-fashioned punch up in the centre of the pitch, and brush it off purely as a bit of banter. Joe Barton will be rolling in his twitter feed.

Violent conduct - Similarly, I'm becoming increasingly confused as to what this means. The word "violent" to me conjures up images of bloodshed, war, or Quentin Tarantino films. In the football world however, it means stuff like "raising you hand", nearly threatening to headbutt someone, gathering around in a group and puffing your chests out at each other, or pointing aggressively. How long until referees start sending off Mario Balotelli just because he has an angry-looking face? Most of his alleged misdemeanors already seem to be based on the idea that he doesn't smile enough.

Liverpool (again) - Remember the dark days when Rafa Benitez's bizarre management tactics would hold Liverpool back and result in them finishing a distant fourth? Those have now evolved into the good old days. The second half of Liverpool's season has instead become a challenge where in each week they'll attempt to be slightly more embarrassing than the last. This was always going to be a big ask when the starting point was defending a racist, and then last week escalated to "losing to Wigan", but remarkably Liverpool keep finding ways to better themselves. For one glorious moment it appeared as if Kenny Dalglish was going to attempt to put himself in goal against Newcastle, but presumably he's keeping that in reserve. There are still seven more weeks to go after all.

Suarez's furious arms - Whenever anyone on the other team does anything, Luis Suarez will claim it was handball and signify as such by jiggling one of his arms maniacally around in the air, and pointing frantically at it with the other one. This happens at least five times a game. He ought to be careful referees don't start sending him off for violent conduct.

Arsene Wenger - It's taken longer than usual this season, but the inevitable has finally happened, and Wenger has accused Arsenal's opponents of beating them by not playing football enough. Apparently majoring in "smug sense of righteousness" when graduating from the Man City academy of morality. Perhaps the reason he's left his ace excuse card up his sleeve for so long this season is because it's taken until the last few weeks for Arsenal to actually start playing any football themselves.

Kit watch - There were erm, no strange kit clashes or enforced kit changes this weekend. Although anyone who can figure out what colour Swansea's away kit actually is will receive a special prize. They've somehow discovered a new colour somewhere between orange, brown and red. A colour which judging by its extreme ugliness, wasn't meant to be discovered.

and some awards:

The Juan Mata award for hitting the post in every single game for an entire season award - Juan Mata

Randomly remembered player award - Stéphane Dalmat; Dalmat was one of the several thousand players who appeared for Tottenham Hotspur during the 2003/2004 season. His speciality was scoring by cutting inside the fullback and firing the ball into the bottom corner, then doing nothing for about a month, and then scoring the exact same goal again. Since being forced to leave Spurs due to the stadium capacity being insufficient to seat their full playing squad, Dalmat has played for a series or progressively worse French teams.

Suarez's furious arms - Whenever anyone on the other team does anything, Luis Suarez will claim it was handball and signify as such by jiggling one of his arms maniacally around in the air, and pointing frantically at it with the other one. This happens at least five times a game. He ought to be careful referees don't start sending him off for violent conduct.

The end of the season is getting closer. Games get more exciting, people get more angry, and football gets more and more silly:

Patrick Vieira - Desperate to make amends for his desperate attempt to criticise United by accusing them of being desperate, Vieira this week decided to give an interview to the BBC...in which he criticised United some more, and proclaimed that Manchester City "deserved" to be champions. Nothing annoys me more in football than people who decide they "deserve" things purely on the basis that they've decided they deserve them, but then Vieira is a former Arsenal player. Perhaps there was no room to put the brain back in when god decided to shrivel up Patrick's head. Yes, he was lead on to criticising United by the BBC in this occasion, but no one forced him to say anything at all. If it's supposed to be mind games, it doesn't really work when you fail to engage your mind first.

Close but no cigar (in the eye) - Meanwhile at Eastlands, yet another stirring almost fight back from City. The blues have in fact become the indisputable almost comeback kings. Almost managing to strike fear into the hearts of opposition with their only just say die attitude. Ok, so this time they salvaged a draw, but at this point in the season and at home, a draw is worth about as much as the moral sense of accomplishment they achieved when throwing themselves out of the FA and Uefa cup. Almost comebacks though are at least a refreshing method of potential season capitulation, compared to Arsenal's annual arrogance implosion, or Chelsea's "spend middle part of season dying of old age" routine. Nearly look out everyone!

The unsightly return of Carlos Tevez - If Carlos Tevez ate the football and ran into the opposition net, would it count as a goal? This needs clearing up before it becomes a real issue. Would the whole of the Tevez have to cross the line, for example, because I'm not sure that's possible without making the net significantly bigger, and other than this, I'm struggling to see why City have brought him back. Maybe it's so he can fill the empty seats at Eastlands...all of them, at the same time...but then if they'd just flown over a few more complementary burgers, he could probably have done that without even having to leave Argentina. Other than that though I can only figure City have forgotten the rule with Tevez where he has to be completely useless for two months before remembering how to play football.

The Blackburn effect - United fans celebrating City's latest almost comeback would do well to remember they're away at Blackburn this coming Monday. Blackburn vs United pans out exactly the same almost every single year; United concede a cheap early goal, then Brad Friedel spends the rest of the game making about 50,000 impossible saves before United eventually salvage a draw in the last ten minutes. Even the fact Brad Friedel no longer plays for Blackburn failed to prevent this from happening last year, and in all likelihood will fail to do so again tomorrow night, with Garry Neville already having awarded him Man of the Match. More to the point, United looked so nervous against an unlucky Fulham side last week, that even in victory they almost managed to cast more doubt than assurance.

"You don't get those at Old Trafford" - Unless you're Arsenal, or Newcastle, or FC Basle, or Blackburn. This sentence, or some variation of it, has been said more times in the past week than Ronaldo has looked at himself in the mirror. A bizarre myth that started out as a convenient scapegoat for the weak, and which has since evolved into the world's most lazy punditry cliché, with the possible exception of "they were first to every single loose ball". Anyone caught muttering either of these sentiments should be immediately punished with a lifelong contract at Channel 5.

"Fighting" between team mates - Here's what constitutes all out infighting and "dressing room meltdown" in the eyes of today's football world:

"Can I take this free kick?"

"no"

"but I want to take it"

"no, go away"

Complete carnage I'm sure you'll agree. Goalkeepers getting angry at their defenders about things also seems to have upgraded itself from normal to outrageous and "detrimental for team spirit"

Gone are the good old days when you coud put a cigarette out in a teammate's eye, or have a good old-fashioned punch up in the centre of the pitch, and brush it off purely as a bit of banter. Joe Barton will be rolling in his twitter feed.

Violent conduct - Similarly, I'm becoming increasingly confused as to what this means. The word "violent" to me conjures up images of bloodshed, war, or Quentin Tarantino films. In the football world however, it means stuff like "raising you hand", nearly threatening to headbutt someone, gathering around in a group and puffing your chests out at each other, or pointing aggressively. How long until referees start sending off Mario Balotelli just because he has an angry-looking face? Most of his alleged misdemeanors already seem to be based on the idea that he doesn't smile enough.

Liverpool (again) - Remember the dark days when Rafa Benitez's bizarre management tactics would hold Liverpool back and result in them finishing a distant fourth? Those have now evolved into the good old days. The second half of Liverpool's season has instead become a challenge where in each week they'll attempt to be slightly more embarrassing than the last. This was always going to be a big ask when the starting point was defending a racist, and then last week escalated to "losing to Wigan", but remarkably Liverpool keep finding ways to better themselves. For one glorious moment it appeared as if Kenny Dalglish was going to attempt to put himself in goal against Newcastle, but presumably he's keeping that in reserve. There are still seven more weeks to go after all.

Suarez's furious arms - Whenever anyone on the other team does anything, Luis Suarez will claim it was handball and signify as such by jiggling one of his arms maniacally around in the air, and pointing frantically at it with the other one. This happens at least five times a game. He ought to be careful referees don't start sending him off for violent conduct.

Arsene Wenger - It's taken longer than usual this season, but the inevitable has finally happened, and Wenger has accused Arsenal's opponents of beating them by not playing football enough. Apparently majoring in "smug sense of righteousness" when graduating from the Man City academy of morality. Perhaps the reason he's left his ace excuse card up his sleeve for so long this season is because it's taken until the last few weeks for Arsenal to actually start playing any football themselves.

Kit watch - There were erm, no strange kit clashes or enforced kit changes this weekend. Although anyone who can figure out what colour Swansea's away kit actually is will receive a special prize. They've somehow discovered a new colour somewhere between orange, brown and red. A colour which judging by its extreme ugliness, wasn't meant to be discovered.

and some awards:

The Juan Mata award for hitting the post in every single game for an entire season award - Juan Mata

Randomly remembered player award - Stéphane Dalmat; Dalmat was one of the several thousand players who appeared for Tottenham Hotspur during the 2003/2004 season. His speciality was scoring by cutting inside the fullback and firing the ball into the bottom corner, then doing nothing for about a month, and then scoring the exact same goal again. Since being forced to leave Spurs due to the stadium capacity being insufficient to seat their full playing squad, Dalmat has played for a series or progressively worse French teams.

Arsene Wenger - It's taken longer than usual this season, but the inevitable has finally happened, and Wenger has accused Arsenal's opponents of beating them by not playing football enough. Apparently majoring in "smug sense of righteousness" when graduating from the Man City academy of morality. Perhaps the reason he's left his ace excuse card up his sleeve for so long this season is because it's taken until the last few weeks for Arsenal to actually start playing any football themselves.

Click to expand...

Eh? when did that happen?
He appreciated their approach and called out on his own team for not being good enough.

I didn't see the game to be fair, apart from the MOTD highlights, which are not to be trusted.

and I like Wenger really. He didn't seem particularly bitter, but I was begining to think he might not play the "best football team" card at all this season. Even the media have attempted to transfer it to Spurs and City at various stages of the season.

The unsightly return of Carlos Tevez - If Carlos Tevez ate the football and ran into the opposition net, would it count as a goal? This needs clearing up before it becomes a real issue. Would the whole of the Tevez have to cross the line, for example, because I'm not sure that's possible without making the net significantly bigger, and other than this, I'm struggling to see why City have brought him back. Maybe it's so he can fill the empty seats at Eastlands...all of them, at the same time...but then if they'd just flown over a few more complementary burgers, he could probably have done that without even having to leave Argentina. Other than that though I can only figure City have forgotten the rule with Tevez where he has to be completely useless for two months before remembering how to play football.